Chapter 9

Answer : Development is a key challenge of our world. Whether it was Millennium Development Goals or the present Sustainable Development Goals both starts with eradication of poverty and hunger in developmental goals. But the lack of awareness on social and cultural factors has created more failures rather than successes because of incompatibility of development efforts with local aspirations. Under such circumstances, Anthropology offers an opportunity because of its strengths of:

• Anthropology works on the principles of ....

Answer : PESA (Panchayats Extension to Scheduled areas) Act, 1996 is an important act, extending the provisions of schedule XI to the 5th scheduled areas (9 states) and sets up of statutory 3-tier panchayat structure in these areas.

Gram Sabha: It is the local village body of all registered voters of the particular areas. Under PESA, gram sabha is supposed to play the following roles:

• To protect the local tradition, beliefs and culture.
• To resolve the local disputes ....

Answer : Who are Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)?

The PVTGs are the marginalized section of the Scheduled tribes of India. They are a section who are relatively isolated, educationally and socio-economically backward, living in a habitat far away from amenities.

PVTG is not a Constitutional category, nor are these constitutionally recognized communities. It is a government of India classification created with the purpose of enabling improvement in the conditions of certain communities with particularly low development.

Tribal communities live ....

Answer : Emergence of TSP (Tribal Sub-plan)

Since the beginning of the Planning process, efforts have been made to ensure that the tribal people were included in the growth process. However, the strategy changed with each Five Year Plan as new lessons were learnt from various developmental efforts. The first Five Year Plan emphasized the provision of additional financial resources through a community development approach to address the problems of tribal people rather than evolving a clear cut ....

Answer : Livelihood essentially revolves around people, their resources such as land, crops, seeds, labour, knowledge, cattle, money, social relationships, and so on.

But these resources cannot be disconnected from the issues and problems of access and changing political, economic, and socio-cultural circumstances. Thus, an understanding of livelihood is necessary as it clarifies some important issues about the role and importance of forest and tribal people. The term livelihood best expresses the idea of individuals and groups striving ....

Answer : There are several practical advantages of anthropology in India. It acts as the biggest remedy of issues related to ethnocentrism. Anthropology has this unique feature of fieldwork to study about the socio-cultural features of all societies from modern to most primitive ones. It has also studied many rural societies and with the increased focus on rural development by government in recent past, the prospects of utilizing his expertise can bring significant results. The majority of ....

Answer : Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, an Austrian ethnologist, developed a keen interest in Indian culture (through early readings of Tagore works and about Gandhi). He spent around 40 years of his life in India studying about dozens of Indian tribes and made some important contributions to our understanding of tribal societies.

Prof. Haimendorf’s interest in the subcontinent dates very far back. In the first half of this century he spent 15 years researching and ....

Answer : From time immemorial India has a natural propensity for voluntary works by virtue of which “Moksha” was said to be attained. The trend persists obstinately. However the nature and mode of volunteerism has changed.

In the pre-independence India, conventional volunteerism was aimed primarily at charitable works, ushering in social reforms, providing relief and rehabilitation for the people who became the victims of natural calamities like drought, flood, cyclones, etc.

However, in post-independence India, modern volunteerism has become ....

Answer : Anthropology provides a useful prism through which significant aspects of power and politics can be viewed and understood. Anthropology is the holistic study of mankind. Anthropological perspectives offer unique insights that ultimately complement the knowledge generated from other social sciences concerned with similar or overlapping issues. Both sociocultural anthropologists—especially political anthropologists—and political scientists study the workings of democracy and citizenship, and both address the shifting or restructured role of the state in the current context, ....

Answer : The dilemma in preparing any policy for the Scheduled Tribes in India is how to strike the right balance between preservation of tribal identity, culture and values, protecting the tribes from being swamped by mainstream lifestyles, while increasing and ensuring their access to mainstream education, health care and income generation so that the quality of their life is improved.

Tribal Panchsheel is an important contribution of Verrier Elwin and J. L. Nehru towards the integration ....

Answer : A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government and a term usually used by governments to refer to entities that have no government status. NGOs are defined by the World Bank as “Private organizations that pursue activities to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the environment, provide basic social services, or undertake community development”.

From time immemorial India has been ....

Answer : Tribal development is a vast and complex issue, which is multidimensional. Anthropologists believe that culture influence all of man’s activities both biological and non-biological. Anthropology has this unique feature of fieldwork to study about the socio-cultural features of all societies from modem to most primitive ones.

The role of anthropologists in tribal development was found as early as during the colonial rule, when tribals opposed the entry of outsiders. Post-1950, two important branches have developed in ....

Answer : Communalism is an ideology which states that society is divided into different communities whose interests differ from, and at times oppose, each other. The antagonism practiced by the people of one community against the people of another community can be termed as communalism. It can take the form of political communalism. It can take the form of political communalism religious communalism, and economic communalism. Communal violence usually occurs when communal thinking reaches a certain level ....

Answer : Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are called by various names across the world, such as third sector organizations, non-profit organizations, voluntary organizations, charitable organizations, community-based organizations and so on with slightly modified scope and coverage. In India, they are often called as not-for-profit institutions, and officially defined as organizations that,

• are not-for-profit and, by law or custom, do not distribute any surplus they may generate to those who own or control them;
• are institutionally separate from government;
• are ....

Answer : Rural development, as per UN, is a process of change, by which the efforts of the people themselves are united, those of government authorities to improve their economic, social and cultural conditions of communities into the life of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully to national programme. Rural development is a process of bringing change among rural community from the traditional way of living to a progressive way of living.

Anthropology has this ....

Answer : Tribal communities are often identified by some specific signs such as primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness to contact with the community at large and backwardness. Along with these, some tribal groups have some specific features such as dependency on hunting, gathering for food, having pre-agriculture level of technology, zero or negative growth of population and extremely low level of literacy. These groups are called Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal ....

Answer : The founding father of the Indian Constitution, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and other members were aware of the political, social and economic inequalities, which existed in the country due to historical reasons. They were aware of the prevailing miserable and appalling conditions of the Scheduled Tribes who had remained far behind and segregated from national life. It became imperative, therefore, to adopt a policy of protective discrimination as an equalizer to those who were too weak ....

Answer : With 1st notification on Scheduled Tribe list under Article 342 in 1950, we are yet to have a national tribal policy. While Tribal Panchsheel acted as guide, but it was more on generality and lacked specifics. After setup of Independent Ministry of Tribal Affairs (1999) now the process of tribal empowerment is speeded up and with Forest Rights Act, 2006 it came out with National Tribal Policy. Though it is yet to see the light ....

Answer : The colonial period in India began with the British colonizers entering India in the 17th century for trade and commercial enterprises. They observed economic and cultural diversity and heterogeneousness in livelihood. So, they categorized the Indian population into certain dwelling and occupational groups and started implementing various laws, acts and policies for the development and benefits of these people. After decades of policies for tribals during the colonial period and despite various constitutional provisions and ....

Answer : The Government’s approach is to deal with Left Wing Extremism in a holistic manner, in the areas of security, development, ensuring rights and entitlements of local communities, improvement in governance and public perception management. Government has adopted both violent and peaceful strategies to tackle threat posed by naxals. Government of India has been keen to follow peaceful strategy of development as a tool to dissuade potent recruits from joining armed struggle in naxal hit areas ....

Answer : Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 or PESA is a law enacted by the Government of India to cover the “Scheduled Areas”, which are not covered in the 73rd amendment or Panchayati Raj Act of the Indian Constitution. It was enacted on 24 December, 1996, to enable Gram Sabhas to self govern their natural resources. It is an Act to provide for the extension of the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution relating ....

Answer : The Government of India, after independence, decided to replace the British colonial policy of isolation and non-interference in the affairs of tribal people of North-East India (Assam) by a policy of integration and development. The framers of the Constitution, the Constituent Assembly, keeping in mind the special needs of these numerous ethnic groups, each having distinct ethnic, cultural and traditional identities, framed the most comprehensive, and the most elaborate Democratic Constitution with federal character, providing ....

Answer : The tribals, who live in forest areas and other remote place, have got their own culture, customs, practices and religion. They have not remained uninfluenced through the sources of change. The changes have taken place even among the tribal groups that lived separate from non-tribal.

The aboriginal tribes of India are the oldest inhabitants of the country. For millennia, tribal societies have been subjugated by more recently arrived groups; their land was taken away, they were ....

Answer : Approaches to tribal development in India are based on three models, to conserve, assimilate and integrate. Experiences of isolation and assimilation policy (well defined by Ghurye, 1963) forced thinkers, anthropologists, and social reformers to adopt something in midway of isolation and assimilation because the base of Indian culture is “Unity in diversity”. Consequently, social reformers, politicians, and anthropologists experts developed a new approach called integration approach.

The isolation and assimilation debate is based on the opposing ....

Answer : During the British rule, most of the tribal communities in India remained isolated from the mainstream of national life. Tribal areas were kept secluded and cut off from the rest of the people. The policy of the British government was solely directed and dominated by the colonial interests and based on isolation and exploitation of the tribals. Though the British kept the tribal administration outside the general administration but the provisions of that were often ....

Answer : The word communalism lacks a universal definition. While in West communalism is defined as a positive integrating force among local communities, in India it is used as a negative to show the ethnic or religious consolidation used to incite violence and create divide among people at a cost to larger social harmony. Communalism means seeking of advantage in social rivalry by exploiting religious appeal.

Dumont in his essay on Nationalism and Communalism writes, “The opposition ....